Best Practices

Direction Counts More than Accuracy

Direction Counts More than Accuracy

Years ago, while working for Green Giant, I phoned our steel can sales rep to ask for a 4% reduction. We had information suggesting steel prices had fallen 8%. He certainly wasn’t very happy and, as...

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Going Fishing with Suppliers

Going Fishing with Suppliers

When the going gets tough, sometimes the best thing procurement can do is drag a supplier into a fishing boat and make it clear they need to land a whopper or the boat is going to sink with everyone...

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The Procurement Conundrum: Savings or PR?

The Procurement Conundrum: Savings or PR?

Asking for favors undermines procurement’s negotiating position, and tough negotiations and good relations make an awkward couple. Why not try a tag team? These are tough times to be in business....

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Trust Your Suppliers, Not Their Data

Trust Your Suppliers, Not Their Data

Depending on a supplier to provide customers with unbiased information is like asking the proverbial fox to guard the henhouse. Procurement professionals need to trust their suppliers’ products,...

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Land the Purchasing Job You Want

Land the Purchasing Job You Want

The competition for good jobs today is unprecedented. Certainly not news. Most of us have had the frustrating experience of applying for a job we really want, only to find hundreds of others had the...

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Know What You Should be Paying

Know What You Should be Paying

In a Perfect World Imagine the negotiating edge you would have if you knew – and could demonstrate – what you should be paying for the products you buy, especially when suppliers approach you for...

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Are you following the Golden Rule?

Are you following the Golden Rule?

Making suppliers’ costs transparent gives them incentive to think long-term. It aligns procurement’s interests with the suppliers’ interests. In ProPurchaser’s Four Cornerstones for Leveraging Cost...

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Negotiate With the Right Data

Negotiate With the Right Data

In a recent survey, 25% of purchasers told us they rely upon free, open-source cost data accessed through search engines like Google. Some of this data is fine but not all of it is suited to the...

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Would Your Hand Still Be In The Air?

Would Your Hand Still Be In The Air?

ProPurchaser President Rod Sherkin has been presenting at supply-chain conferences for years. At ISM2019 in Houston, Texas he spoke about the importance of cost transparency – a topic that is...

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The Power of Peer Pressure

The Power of Peer Pressure

Driving down costs by ‘coaxing’ voluntary behavior change Anyone who survived the social pressure cooker of high school knows about the power of peer pressure. For supply chain professionals trying...

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Plant Tours Worth Every Minute

Plant Tours Worth Every Minute

You gotta go look The struggle to find “good fit” suppliers never ends. And finding the right suppliers has never been more important than it is right now. Global competition and the need to drive...

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